The Federal Government launched the Federal Strategy to Incentivize the Sustainable Use of Biogas and Biomethane, seeking the reduction of methane emissions in line with the Brazilian international commitments, including the Global Methane Pledge.
The Federal Government, through Decree n.º 11.003/2022, launched the Federal Strategy to Incentivize the Sustainable Use of Biogas and Biomethane, seeking to promote initiatives to reduce methane emissions, foster the use of biogas and biomethane as renewable sources of energy and fuel, and contribute to the fulfillment of Brazilian international commitments. Such commitments include those under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Glasgow Climate Pact, and the Global Methane Pledge (article 1).
As provided in the definitions (article 3), the strategy considers the raw gases containing methane that originate from renewable materials and organic residues as “biogases”, and the purification of such biogases into biofuel, essentially comprised of methane and following the appropriate specifications from the Brazilian National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels (ANP), as “biomethane”. The strategy’s definition of organic residues includes those originating from landfills, sewage treatment plants, and residues from the sugar-energy, swine, and poultry industries (article 7).
The strategy’s guidelines include the promotion of the carbon market related to methane, the development of sector agreements, the development of the biomethane supply chain and technologies that consume biomethane (e.g., in transportation), and measures to reduce methane emissions (article 4). As provided in article 6, the coordination of measures to implement the new strategy will be carried out by the Inter-ministerial Committee on Climate Change and Green Growth, established by Decree n.º 10.845/2021 under the National Program on Green Growth – reported in the 29th edition of the Regulatory Report.
Furthermore, the Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME) enacted Normative Ordinance n.º 627/2022, including the infrastructure projects related to biomethane production in the Special Regime of Incentives for Infrastructure Development (REIDI, in the Portuguese acronym). The Ministry of Environment (MMA), through Ordinance n.º 71/2022, enacted a National Program on the Reduction of Methane Emissions, namely “Metano Zero”, under the framework of the new federal strategy.
